


been to hell (but i’m back again)

by packrat



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Aubrey the daughter, F/M, Gen, Rosa comes out to her longterm boyfriend tom, it’s a prologue to the 2 part au, it’s not graphic but just to be sure, rosa is a mom in this one, tom the librarian, tw for domestic violence, use of lgbt phobic slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 08:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20355220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/packrat/pseuds/packrat
Summary: Rosa was only 25 and all she knew about love was this:Love is hurtful.Love is destructive.Love isdeadly.Love is vital to the schemes of existence.Love never ends well.Itneverends well.OrRosa coming out to her longterm boyfriend endsnotlike she thought it would.





	been to hell (but i’m back again)

**The avalanche was triggered like this:**

She was 25 when it came up in a conversation for the first time. Tom was telling her about a friend of his and how he broke up with his girlfriend because she’s bisexual. 

“He’s sure she’s just a dyke”, he said and internally Rosa cringed. 

_Just a dyke, just a dyke, just a dyke._

“Well”, she began her sentence but interrupted herself abruptly. _She can’t go through with this._ “Never mind”, she said instead. 

Rosa was only 25 and all she knew about love was this:

Love is hurtful. 

Love is destructive. 

Love is _deadly._

Love is vital to the schemes of existence. 

Love never ends well. 

It _never_ ends well.

At first, he let it slide, leaned back into his seat and slung his arm around her shoulder. Pulled her closer. 

**And he expected it to play out like this:**

_Her head on his shoulder, heavy but light. Followed by kisses to his neck, wandering up to his mouth. _

_More kisses and kisses and kisses until she sits on his lap and is softly grinding on him and he’s moving to take her shirt off. Two seconds of oxygen. And more kisses and kisses and kisses. _

**He expected it to end like this:**

_Them. Naked in bed. Side by side and glistening in the moonlight. Out of breath and out of their minds. _

**Instead it played out as follows:**

Her frame rigid in his embrace. Eyes nervously flitting over the room. Her shrugging his arm off her shoulder and darting out of the room with the mere apology of needing to check on Aubrey. 

When she returned, she sat on the other end of the living room sofa, facing Tom and looking him directly into his eyes. It took all the bravery in her to tell him that what he said was wrong in so many ways. 

“Why?”, he asked. Oblivious to the world. “She is just a dyke in disguise and he wasted all this time on her”, he exclaimed. 

Rosa looked down for the fraction of a second, inhaled deeply, and directed her gaze back up again. 

“Then I must be _just a dyke in disguise_ as well!”, is what she shouted at him. An explosion of honesty. She was 25 when the word came out of her mouth for the first time. “I am bisexual, too, Tom.”

Instantly, she regretted telling him because his face fell into something that could only be called disgust. And his body started shaking with anger. 

Not anger. 

Laughter. 

“You’re a lesbian as well? Bet you’re shagging his girlfriend then!”

Rosa knew that being with him was wrong, had been wrong for a longer time now but she was always willing to try. 

They fell in love when they were seniors in high school, going to go to the same college that fall. He’s been a safe option. 

Until he wasn’t anymore. 

It was quarter past nine when his fist went through the wall, the fake-concrete bursting beneath his knuckles and the white dust thinly veiled his skin as he pulled it back out again. 

He stared at it, in wonder maybe or in amazement. And Rosa knew that she couldn’t stay anymore. 

Her body started shaking and she locked herself in her daughter’s bedroom. She hastily threw Aubrey’s clothes into a bag then crawling under the four year old’s covers and listening to her even breathing, waiting for Tom to go to bed. 

To give up for tonight. 

She was 25 when she didn’t know where to go for the first time in her life and ended up on her sister’s front porch in the middle of the night. It was cold and the rain was drizzling just enough to make her perfectly uncomfortable. 

More uncomfortable than she already was with a bag of her daughter’s clothes in one and her daughter in the other arm. 

Thankful for her sister not asking any questions and letting her stay until she found somewhere permanent again. 

**It ends like this: **

She gets promoted to Detective and starts working in the 99th precinct. She meets friends she later considers family. She never goes back to Tom and they don’t speak for a year before they can agree upon terms in regards of caring for their daughter. 

She meets Gina Linetti. 

**It really only starts like this:**

Marrying the love of her life.


End file.
